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Hack your GoPro with Autoexec.ash

GoPro cameras are great for getting interesting shots that couldn’t be taken through traditional means. Sometimes, though, it would be great if you had more options than GoPro gives you by default.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Konrad decided to write in with this excellent way to extend your GoPro camera’s abilities, through a simple scripting hack. Reportedly, if a file named autoexec.ash is in the root directory of the SD card on a GoPro camera, it will execute that routine. You can modify this script to create different behaviors.

As for the specifics of this GoPro hack, there are a bunch of scripts on Konrad’s GitHub repository. All you have to do is save a text file from there as a .ash file, then place it on your SD card. You can even put it into a text editor and change the parameters. The files are very small, so it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to make some creative edits.

One of the more interesting scripting techniques allows one to extend the time-lapse interval beyond the normal 60 seconds. He also lists various capture mode hacks, and even a couple modifying the LED display behavior.

Check out the video after the “read more” to see how to load this hack onto your GoPro camera.

On the other hand, the GitHub repository notes that “ALL HACKS HERE WILL VOID THE WARRANTY OF THE CAMERA,” so use these at your own risk. I haven’t tried in on my camera personally. Although it looks cool, I’m able to use my GoPro for enough awesome shooting situations, that I don’t know if I’ll take the risk.

If you don’t have a GoPro camera yet, you can pick up a top of the line Hero 3+ on Amazon for only $399 as of this writing. On the other hand, I have a Hero 3 white which can be had for about half that price, and is still really awesome.

If hacking your camera looks interesting, but you only (or additionally) have a Canon point-and-shoot camera, why not check out CHDK, for an even more incredible feature-extending hack.